Morning Roundup: Happy Cyber Monday, America!

We hope everyone had an excellent Thanksgiving, but we know everybody had a spendy Black Friday, because on that ridiculous annual exercise in porcine consumerism, U.S. retail sales were 6.4 percent higher than a year ago. [Bloomberg]

Oh and have you ever heard of Small Business Saturday? Because now there is another one of these insipidly named shopping days. [AP]

Related? … Debt collectors are suing people who can’t pay their bills. This would just be normal, except that debt collectors are suing an unusual number of people, because an unusual number of people can’t pay their bills. [WSJ]

The European bailout of Ireland continues to move forward, and according to rules outlined by the IMF, government bond holders, banks and basically everyone involved will feel substantial pain as a result. [AFP]